


Keep Your Head Down and Blaster Ready

by StardustAndAsh



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Battle of Scarif, Death Star What Death Star, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Not Canon Compliant, Team as Family, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-11 09:12:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8973694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StardustAndAsh/pseuds/StardustAndAsh
Summary: An Everybody Lives au with no explanation other than i needed them all to be ok.OrJyn faces off with Krennic, Cassian took a lot longer than he did in the film to get to the top of the tower, and Bodhi's ship never got blasted.





	

Keep your head down and blaster ready. Those were the words Jyn had lived by since she was eleven years old. For the most part she had succeeded, fading into the galaxy as just another person too dirty and poor to be of any consequence. She hadn’t been the daughter of Galen Erso for more years than she had lived with him and called him Papa.

Then in less than a week she found herself leading a force of Rebels into the belly of the beast to save the galaxy. No one, not even Jyn herself, had expected her attachment to the Rebellion. She had planned to cut and run as soon as her father’s message had been relayed to the right people, but seeing her father, watching him die, Jyn knew she had to look up sometime.

Right now she just wished she hadn’t looked up into the barrel of a blaster.

Krennic stood in front of her, smug smirk on his face, and Jyn shivered with the thought of knowing this was the last sight her mother saw as well.  There was something oddly comforting about that. Like if her mother was brave enough to die for the family she loved, Jyn could do the same. The small crew of Rogue One had become a family in a few short days. Chirrut and Baze called her little sister, Bohdi looked up to her father as she had, and Cassian was always watching her six. Even poor Kay-Two, who had finally accepted her minutes before being ripped apart by blasters. All of them could be lying dead somewhere out in the bloodied sand, but Jyn had found hope and was unwilling to let it go. Her family was out there, and she would die for their sake, and the sake of the galaxy’s freedom.

Jyn eyed the screen over Krennic’s shoulder and could see it was ready to relay the plans. Looking back to the blaster in Krennic’s hand she began to form a plan. It wasn’t a great plan, but she knew she was never going to live to old age anyway. Better to go out doing saving the galaxy than wasting away in an Imperial work camp.

The Kyber crystal around her neck felt heavy as Jyn charged forward. Speed and surprise were on her side as she cut off Krennic’s monologuing with a low tackle.

Several things happened all at once: there was a ring of blaster fire, Jyn got Krennic’s head in her hand and slammed it into the metal of the platform, and a harsh burning pain lit up her side. Jyn rolled off the now prone man to see the smoking blaster in his hand and the newly made hole just above her hip.

Curse all these damn Rebels that made her think she could be a hero.

With a grunt of pain she hauled herself to her hands and knees, ignoring the way her arms were shaking with exhaustion and pain, ignoring the bloody smear she left behind, ignoring everything that wasn’t those damn plans. As an afterthought she reached down and grabbed the blaster from Krennic’s limp hand. Blaster at the ready and all that.

The length of the platform seemed to have tripled sometime between charging at Krennic and getting to her knees. Jyn crawled as best she could over to the control console. She just had to do this one thing, then she could rest. Her vision wobbled as she pulled herself up to the console, leaning on it for full support as she punched in the right sequence to transmit the data file to the rebels hovering above the planet. She hit the send button and let herself drop. The mission was done. It was over.

Jyn slumped against the console, one hand weakly pressed to the hole in her side, one loosely gripping the blaster. She watched the sky battle taking place but registered nothing but the brief flashes of green and red laser fire. Jyn always knew she’d die young, but she never thought she’d die a hero in the middle of some grand battle against the Empire. She chuckled weakly. Her father would laugh with her, tell her he always knew his Stardust was destined for greatness. She reached up and gripped the Kyber crystal around her neck, trying to feel for her mother and father in the Force. What was Chirrut’s prayer again? ‘I am the Force and the Force is with me’. Nice words to hear when dying she supposed.

A shadow passed in front of her. Jyn closed her hand around the blaster and brought it up, ready to be defiant until the end until a voice pulled her out of her fog.

“Jyn, it’s me.” Cassian. That was Cassian’s voice. He hadn’t been killed by Krennic. The relief that flooded her was more than she expected. She tried blinking away the haze that covered her vision but the best she got was a blurry view of his face. Maybe she had hit her head somewhere between resetting the dish and transmitting the plans.

“So you’re still alive?” was all she had to say, though without her usual sarcastic bite.

“So are you.”

With a grunt of pain he settled down beside her and laced his fingers with hers.

“We did it,” said Jyn.

“We did.”

“Think the others made it?”

Cassian paused a bit too long. “We can hope.”

“This whole Rebellion of yours is built on hope,” answered Jyn.

They lapsed into silence and Jyn’s mind drifted. She thought about her father, about Saw Gererra, and the people of Jedha and how death came for all of them as it was coming for her. She thought about the Death Star, and how the Empire wanted to rule through fear even when most of the galaxy had little thoughts for whatever government was in charge. It was funny, that she spent so much time as just Jyn, an ordinary person living a hard but ordinary life, that she had always known that one day she would die alone, and if she was really lucky someone might do something with her body. Now here she was, in the middle of something extraordinary and she wasn’t going to die alone. She chuckled, rousing Cassian.

“What’s so funny?”

“We’re not going to die alone. Didn’t expect that.” Jyn’s laugh turned into a gurgling cough.

Cassian’s worried face appeared in her peripheral vision.  He shook her shoulder gently as he tried to get her to focus, but Jyn’s eyes kept trailing past him to the blue sky beyond. This was the prettiest planet she had ever been on.

“Jyn?”

There were ships flying by in dizzying maneuvers. Jyn had wanted to be a pilot when she was younger and her family was whole. That way they could all travel across the galaxy without the Empire following them.

“Jyn? Stay with me now,” said Cassian, desperation in his voice.

Jyn still couldn’t tear her eyes away from the sky beyond. It took her a moment to realize that one of the ships was getting closer. An Imperial cargo transport. The Kyber crystal hummed with warmth and she knew exactly who was on board.

“Cassian,” she murmured, catching his attention. He finally clued in and turned around. The ship was hovering at the edge of the platform as if the raging battle all around them was as scary as a fly in your hair.  The hatch opened, and out jumped the gruff figure of Baze. He dashed across the small platform to the two of them.

“You did it then?”

“The Rebel Alliance has the plans,” Cassian answered. “Help Jyn. I can’t carry her.”

Why couldn’t Cassian carry her? Jyn struggled to remember before the image of Krennic firing at them in the data storage shaft came to mind. Strong arms found their way under her knees and around her shoulders.

“I’ve got you, little sister,” Baze murmured at her, “I’ve got you.”

When Baze stood the world shifted into sharp focus as pain blossomed all over Jyn’s body. She was no stranger to pain, but she’d never taken a round from a blaster in the side. She bit her lip instead of screaming. Anything instead of screaming. But she could see Cassian limping along beside them, see Baze’s worried face, See Bodhi at the controls. There were faces of the rebels who had come with them peering out the hatch with arms ready to pull them into the hold.  The adrenaline rush from the pain lasted until she was settled into a corner of the hold, Cassian by her side, and one of the rebel fighters bent over the two of them, applying bandages and patches of some foul smelling medicine. She wondered where Baze had gone until she saw him hunched over a prone figure lying on one of the ships two small benches. Chirrut. Baze was cradling his head in his lap, gently brushing stray hairs out of Chirrut’s face. Bandages wound their way around Chirrut’s torso and for a heart-stopping moment Jyn he was dead. Then she saw the small rise and fall of his chest.

Somehow, miraculously, they had all made it out. Excepting a few rebel soldiers Jyn hadn’t bothered to learn the names of. She felt no guilt, it wasn’t the first time a soldier had died for her mission. It had happened when she worked for Saw Gererra. Eventually Jyn stopped asking for their names and let them become faceless.

Bodhi was shouting down at them, concern in his voice but Jyn didn’t catch the words. Cassian answered, grunting as he pulled himself to the bottom of the ladder to the cockpit. There were a few back and forths, and more than a few glances around the hold.

In the exhaustion and the smell of blood and smoke and sweat it dawned on Jyn that it was over. Everything was over. She had finished what her father had set out to do by getting the plans to the Rebel Alliance, They had broken into and brought down the Imperial Data Archive, and despite the odds they had all survived. Except Kay-Two. Jyn wasn’t sure how to feel about that. He was a droid after all, but he had a personality and feelings, even if the feelings were judgements based on statistics.

Jyn felt herself sliding down the wall she had been propped up on, but other than the bloody smears she didn’t really mind. Getting tired of sitting up anyway. Her hair had given up staying in its usual utilitarian bun and curled gently over her shoulders. Next thing she knew Cassian was there, shifting her back upright and gently pushing the hair out of her face. She glared at him. Couldn’t he tell she was more comfortable getting intimate with the floor than using the wall as a prop?

“It’s going to be five hours until we reach Yavin 4,” said Cassian.

Jyn eyed the bandages around his shoulder and thigh and the tightness around his eyes. She was not the only one shot by Krennic, after all. Cassian looked about ready to drop himself.

“May as well sit before you fall,” said Jyn, reaching up and yanking him down beside her.

It was Cassian’s turn to glare at her.

“Do you think the Alliance might give me a new shirt?” asked Jyn. She wasn’t above stealing one,  but seeing as the only one she currently owned now had a large bloody hole in it, it would be nice to not have to hunt one down. If she made it back. Yavin 4 was a long way off and Jyn knew she couldn’t move right now if she tried.

Cassian looked shocked for a moment, then laughed. It was the first time she had heard him laugh. The first time any of them had laughed since this whole thing started.

“If you asked I would not be surprised if they gave you a crown.”

“Queen of the Rebels. I’m not sure I like the sound of that,” said Jyn. It was too far from keeping her head down and blaster ready.

Darkness was creeping into Jyn’s vision. She stole one more look at Chirrut and Baze, who was now leaning back against the hull with his eyes closed, one hand over Chirrut’s heart and the other still cradling his head. Together they looked peaceful. The monk and his guardian. Cassian next to her looked like a hero returning from the war ought to look: battered but handsome, shoulders still square and fire still in his eyes. Jyn hadn’t seen Bodhi since leaving the ship on Scarif, but he was still flying and that was something. With a sigh she leaned her head back against the hull and let the soft hum of the engine lull her into sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> If you knew of my writing you know I like to make my characters suffer in painful ways, but you may not know that I do like it when characters live. None of the Rogue One characters deserved to die omfg, give them a break, pls. 
> 
> I might be assed to write more chapters/a sequel story if y'all like this.


End file.
